Some programmers like to know everything about a language they are using, knowing all the edge cases, keywords no-one else uses, the exact execution order of tokens and weird quirks. They are masters of complete understanding, and very occasionally this mastery allows them to come up with a revolution in the way things are done. Let's call these the Scholars.
A lot of others don't though, the joy of programming for them is not mastery of the grammar but writing the story. They would rather use a combination of run it and see and diving into the documentation only when totally necessary. Do not mistake this for an amateur who is cargo culting their code, these programmers know exactly what their code does, they just learn the bits they need as they need them. Let's call these the Mavericks.
I struggled to find neutral words for both schools of thought, don't read too much into the names I picked.
Both types can be excellent hackers. And of course we have a spectrum in between Scholars and Mavericks.
I am a Maverick. I find the Scholars, with their memorization of all the rules, to be both awe inspiring and entirely tiresome at the same time. I don't enjoy sitting down with a cocoa and a spec because I'd prefer to be programming. There is a vast swathe of every spec and every library that is entirely useless for the task I have at hand, quite often for any task I would ever do. I see anything which forces me to learn that useless knowledge as a waste of time.
Use semi-colons for every statement is a simple and easily remembered rule, one which takes no effort compared to reading a spec that delivers me little or even no benefit. I will also tend to forget these rules because my mind just doesn't see it as particularly useful information, I don't use it enough. I don't have any motivation to force that knowledge in my brain through learning practices because to a Maverick, it's boring.
There is no lack of curiosity or education in the latter type of programmer. I read this type of article which Scholars so often write with exasperation. Mavericks just don't care about learning the intricacies of language grammar compared to doing something else in programming. That something else is just as intellectually demanding.
Please remember that the next time you come across a Maverick, we're just of different schools, not of different ability.